


Concession

by I_Write_Midnight_Snacks (Pink_and_Purple_Daisies)



Series: Something better than you are today [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Enemy to Caretaker, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Hurt Tim Drake, Hurt/Comfort, I have no idea what to tag here, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Panic Attacks, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Whump, i'll make sure to add them, jesus fuck, let me know if I'm missing any tags please, look I have a Bone to pick with how canon portrays these two, mixed canon i guess??, no beta we die like jason, or at least he's getting there, pretty sure this counts, what media sources do i even tag???!!!, which is to say canon is dead and they're my kids now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:42:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28274769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_and_Purple_Daisies/pseuds/I_Write_Midnight_Snacks
Summary: No more dead kidssomething shouts, kicks and screams in the back of his mind, something that’s usually easy to drown out. When the green haze is taking all his anger and turning it up, setting fire to all his rage, all his desire, making it so loud that the need to make everything right is all that’s left, everything else fades away. But right here and now, with the pit fading away, everything that was muted before washes over him like ice cold water.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Something better than you are today [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2071341
Comments: 18
Kudos: 486
Collections: Jason and Tim Enemy-to-Caretaker





	Concession

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, I haven't even touched a single batman or red hood comic in my life. In my defense, the more I learn about canon, the more I wish I didn't know anything. I have a lot of bones to pick about how both Jason and Tim have been portrayed, none of that noise in my house. We're ignoring the decisions of the council, seeing as they're all stupid decisions. Canon is dead and I'm running with my own version.
> 
> Anyway, I've been in writer's block for months, and this is my attempt to get out. I'm not entirely happy with how it turned out but I'm honestly ecstatic that I managed to actually get this much content out! Still, I take criticism.

It was meant to be a quiet stake-out, but when did life ever work out as expected for Jason?

He doesn’t have a lot of rules for crime alley. Most of them come down to “leave children alone, or else”, so he’s actually a bit miffed that he somehow ended up sitting in the middle of a dilapidated warehouse, back-to-back with the fucking Replacement after his quiet stakeout turned into a violent shootout because the jackasses thought they were smart enough to traffic kids behind his back.

The kids ran away at some point during the fight, and he’ll have to track them down soon. Most kids who ran on crime alley were smart enough to know when to run and how to get away, how to keep themselves safe from traffickers and other such creeps, but these kids must not have been on the streets for long. Damn.

His shoulder is pulsing, he twisted an ankle, and his ribs are definitely bruised where he had to take some bullets to keep the kids safe. The worst part of it is the way his fingers are even now twitching on the trigger of his gun, just waiting to shoot the assholes in the head where they’re limp on the ground, put them out of their misery, but he’s trying to Play Nice, and the green framing his vision will definitely deepen if he lets himself go for even a second, and with the Replacement right here-

The familiar anger is as ever present, vicious and rough, and a part of him thrills at the chance of having the kid so vulnerable, right there at his fingertips. He’s sitting at his back, leaning on Jason way more than Jason is leaning on him, breathing raggedly. The pit thrills at the thought, and his anger responds in kind, already picturing everything he could do, all the tools at his disposal, the ways he could clip the baby bird’s wings, but there’s no way this tentative truce would hold if he actually snaps and kills the kid, and he isn’t planning on being run out of Gotham yet, so he needs to get away _yesterday_.

“Ok, it’s been fun, Replacement, but let’s never do this again.” He stands up, planning to just walk away, but - 

He stands, and Tim falls.

He chokes out a hoarse, painful noise, curls on his side and coughs, grasps at the ground and Jason-

Broken bones are shifting against each other, gravel digging into his skin, pain burning at every nerve and-

Tim rolls on his back and gasps, deep and painful-

Ragged breaths, frantic and short in hurting lungs, broken ribs piercing painfully into soft tissue, the gravel digging into his bloody fingers, someone’s laughing and he can’t _Breathe_ -

He swallows the vomit and his body seizes and he needs to get out of here, get the fuck away from another warehouse with another beaten kid. His muscles are locked in place. He needs to breathe. 

The Replacement is trying to move, but his arms give way under him, and Jason can’t fucking Breathe, because that’s a _kid_ , battling for breath on the floor, and he’s so fucking small, the green pulses - _fades_

and Jason needs to breathe -

\- in for four, hold for seven, out for eight

in for four, hold for seven, out for eight.

Breathe.

“Fuck,” he says. Stop, and assess.

The kid - the fucking _kid_ , who is almost as small as Jason was back then and how the hell didn’t he notice that before - took a hit to the head, at one point, and he’s definitely concussed, going by the clumsy movements, but that may not be all. Jason hadn’t paid all that much attention, doesn’t know the fight’s play-by-play, but some of the thugs had some kind of stun-guns, some new type he hasn’t seen before, and at the very least, the kid’s tech is fried. If he got tased directly, he might not be holding himself up too soon, and there’s no telling what other damage there is -

_No more dead kids_

something shouts, kicks and screams in the back of his mind, something that’s usually easy to drown out. When the green haze is taking all his anger and turning it up, setting fire to all his rage, all his desire, making it so loud that the need to make everything right is all that’s left, everything else fades away. But right here and now, with the pit fading away, everything that was muted before washes over him like ice cold water.

Jason crouches, and considers. He can’t see anything obviously wrong, but if there are any broken bones, picking him up might not be the best idea. He’s looking at Jason with weary eyes, though, and if he’s lucid enough to be worried, maybe it’s a good sign. Maybe -

“Replacement, if you’re coherent, I need you to tell me if you think anything’s broken.”

The kid snorts, and that’s a mark on the lucidity scale at least. “There’s no fucking time, kid. These assholes are gonna start waking up any moment, and our comms are down, so unless you want to be here in your state when they wake up, like a nice little consolation prize, I’m your best option for now.”

He’s trying to glare at Jason. His eyes are focusing somewhere just to the left, though, so that’s definitely probably a concussion. He slumps, soon, resigned to lose the fight against his body - or resigned to rely on Jason, it could be either really - and something’s not right about that, but Jason doesn’t get to dwell because Tim speaks to him for the first time that evening.

“A broken rib, at least. Arm, too.” he says in a hoarse voice, and winces. “Bruises, mostly, but my leg hurts, possible fracture, not sure how bad it is.” Here, he hesitates, but goes on with “Got tased twice,” and Jason curses.

“Fuck. That’s not good.” Tim looks like he might actually laugh at that if it wouldn’t hurt too much. He wants to make a comment about bringing a staff to a gunfight, but the Replacement probably took those hits to protect those kids, same as him, so he can’t quite bring himself to mean it this time. Instead, he considers his options. Thankfully pain is a good anchor, and any other confused feelings are easily pushed to the side for the moment.

It’s not going to be easy, but if they can stick to the shadows, they might be able to make it to his closest safe house. He can’t try to carry the kid, with his shoulder as it is, but if he uses the other arm to hold him around the back and the Replacement is willing to lean on him and not put weight on that leg, they might make this work. His motorcycle is close by, but with his shoulder and Tim’s rib, that’s not an option, so hobbling their way there will have to do.

The Replacement isn’t thrilled, but pain is a strong motivator, and so is not being ambushed by a bunch of child-trafficking creeps when you're completely vulnerable, so he makes do. Jason’s own bruised ribs burn with the pain of taking the kid’s full weight, but it’s their only option for making it there.

It would have been easy if he was going on his own. Even with the dislocated shoulder, he could handle the grapple with one arm and he’d make his way easily. Carrying a nearly immobile kid with him without use of both arms is significantly more troublesome. At one point, he has to put the kid down to threaten a bunch of thugs in an alley. His reputation helps him out and it doesn't devolve into a fight, thankfully, so. Small mercies.

They make it the few streets to his safe house in marginally decent time, given everything. Getting past his own security isn’t the easiest thing with only one hand, and he has to put the kid down again to pull it off, but he gets it done without triggering anything, so he counts that as a win. The kid isn’t looking great though, so he gets him to the couch.

He has a working phone somewhere around here. The first thing he needs to do is to tip off the police, and maybe they’ll get to the warehouse in time. Then he goes for the kit in his bathroom. His ankle is hurting more by now but he ignores it. He needs to fix his own shoulder before he can get anything else done, though.

There’s nothing else on hand, but he finds a hand towel and bites down on it, because this is going to hurt like a bitch, and grabs his own arm-

1  
2  
3  
_Pop_ and he muffles a scream, just barely - his shoulder burns and for a second it’s agony - but then it fades. Normally, he should get a sling and let it heal, but for now that’s the worst of his damage fixed, and he’s more worried about getting back to the kid. Whatever he got hit with, it wasn’t good, and then he can deal with the small problems after.

***

Tim can't move. His muscles are contracting wildly while simultaneously being totally limp, which can't be good no matter how he looks at it, and he needs to figure out what they hit him with, STAT, but more importantly right now, _he can't move_. The thugs are going to start waking up at some point - the Child Traffickers- and if Tim is still here by that time, he's fucked, because his comms are as fried as his muscles.

And Hood is the only other person around.

So when Hood offers to get him out, he takes it, no matter how much his instincts scream out against it. Jason... won't kill him, at least. Tim _thinks_. He's trying to play nice so he wouldn't do that right now, and it's his only option other than the child traffickers, so he takes it, even if he knows better than anyone how much mileage Hood can get without ever going far enough to kill him.

He takes the lesser of two evils.

Everything that isn't numb hurts like a bitch, and the way there isn't made any easier by Jason's unsteadiness. His broken bones sear agony through his nerves with every step, and he can’t even see right. He kinda wants to cry. He doesn't get a punctured lung, though, so. Small mercies.

He spends the entire trip thinking about what Jason could possibly be planning with him. They'd been staying far away from each other ever since Jason first got back to Gotham, and this joint mission was pure coincidence, but he hasn't forgotten their previous meetings - the broken bones, the phantom pains he still feels sometimes, the _betrayal_ of looking up into the face of his childhood hero and having-

So no, he isn't trusting this situation.

They don't exchange words even as Hood puts him on the couch and keeps going further into the building. He shifts his head as well as he can to look around, but there's not much to take in. A pretty simple setul, open-plan for ease of access, he would guess, and a small hallway to the rest of the flat. There's a noise, a few minutes later, muffled, almost a shout but not quite, and soon Jason is making his way back.

The helmet is gone, and like this, he can see that some of the green from his eyes is faded.

"So, I've got some local anesthetics, or I could just knock you out with the strong shit. Up to you, kid, but we've gotta deal with those bones," he says as he approaches, holding an aid kit in one hand, and Tim-

Tim has no idea how to take this. He glares, because he isn't trusting it for a second, and there's no way he's letting Jason come anywhere near him with a needle.

He's already helpless as it is, muscles barely recovered enough to start trembling with the strain of sitting upright, but he's not dumb enough to make himself even more vulnerable, when he knows that the other shoe is just waiting to drop.

Jason somehow manages to convey an eye-roll without actually moving a single muscle, but Tim waits him out. If Jason is going to push him down and hurt him, then he's going to look Tim in the eye as he does. And then maybe, the part of Tim that still remembers the smiling, fun Robin he used to idolize is going to look his former hero in the face and finally die away just like that hero did years ago, and fuck, this is going to _hurt_ -

"Look kid, those injuries are bad news, and I need to get to them before something gets even worse, so either you can pick one, or I will, got it?"

"I'm not letting you knock me out," he spits, and this time, Jason does roll his eyes.

"Glad we got that out of the way,” he says. He puts the kit on the table, the phone from his pocket next to it, and rummages through the box for whatever he’ll need.

Tim braces himself, he tries at least, but Jason is coming at him and he's holding a needle and his body - seizes

_thump_

His heart jumps and he needs to pull back but his body still won't _move_ right.

"Sit still or you'll fuck up that arm even more, replacement," Jason snaps, and grabs him, and Tim holds his breath -The needle pierces and he's waiting for the tell-tale haze of unconsciousness, or something, or-

Or maybe just his arm going numb, taking the pain with it. Huh.

Jason is looking at him when he starts breathing again, one eyebrow curved up and way too expressive. Tim wants to scoff. Jason doesn't get to judge if his fight or flight is triggered by this situation.

"Are you gonna have a heart attack, or can I get on with it?"

Tim rolls his eyes, but stays silent, only holding his breath whenever Jason's hands get close again.

Which is a lot, all things considered, but it's fine. Tim is fine. Tim is perfectly fine not breathing as long as it means his heart won't pop, and he's perfectly fine having his almost-murderer handling him when he's vulnerable, and everything is Fine.

By the time it's over, he feels like shit. His head still hurts, his nerves are buzzing, and where he isn't numb his muscles are slowly coming back online, burning. According to Jason, the spots where they hit him with that stun gun were looking bad, and given the after effects, he needs to find out where that tech came from, because it wasn't common grade. They’re designed for longer term compliance, he’d guess based on the reaction, maybe even for torture, and they can’t risk letting those on the streets.

Jason disappears for a few minutes, but Tim barely gets to breathe before he's back, with - a pillow? And a blanket, too, that he plops on top of Tim on the couch, and Tim is so confused, and he's not coherent enough to work through whatever Jason might be thinking, so he-

"Why am I here, Jason? And you? What are you doing?"

"Making sure that I'm not sending you back to the bats half dead?" He answers sardonically.

His eyes are burning. He's too tired to play these games.

"Jason, please. Just tell me what you want. We both know you hate me, so what’s happening? What are you even playing at here?"

Jason huffs and turns away. Tim thinks that's it for the discussion, and he blinks back the burning sensation that threatens to escape his eyes, but then Jason reaches the kitchen, and starts moving around, and he speaks.

"I don't hate you, replacement," he says. "I'm angry, and I hate Bruce, but I took it out on you and I shouldn't have."

It's not an apology, but it's a concession, and it's more than Tim expected. He wants to ask more, because he's not convinced, but there's a glass of water being shoved in his face, and he grabs it before he can think better. He frowns at it, then at Jason, sniffs at it but there's no scent or color he can pick out.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, I didn't poison it, rep- kid. I just told you I don't want to kill you."

Tim isn't convinced. He is parched, though - turns out having however-many volts of electricity forced through your body is prone to let you feel a bit dry. Besides, if Jason wants to get something in him, he can do it by force, so he sighs, and drinks the glass.

It doesn't taste like anything, either, so another check in the maybe not drugged slot.

His arm feels sore after that little effort. He has a hunch that he'll be feeling these after effects for a few days.

Great.

Jason takes the glass before he can drop it, at least, and places another full one on the table next to the couch. "I buzzed the police, so they should have secured the warehouse. If anything was left behind, they'll get it. I'm going to sleep now, so if you need anything, shout for me." And just like that, he's gone.

Tim stares after Jason for a few seconds, frozen. Everything's silent, though, and he's alone, and he looks at the glass of water but his eyes are drawn beyond it, to that forgotten cell phone.

Huh.

He can work with that.

***

Jason walks to the safe house’s kitchen with little enthusiasm the next morning. He woke up from a nightmare, no more well rested than he was when he went to sleep, and the shit storm from yesterday still waits to be resolved.

Still, there's coffee and food in the kitchen, and he's looking forward to getting some of that. So when he steps into the open area living room, he feels almost good for a moment-

"Jesus _Fucking_ Christ, replacement!"

There's filled out papers spread out all over his couch and table. Papers that were not there last night. The replacement is _still_ writing, even while typing something on _Jason's Phone_ with one hand.

"Did you even sleep at all this night?"

Tim didn't look up. "Is it morning already?"

"Yes it's morning already."

"Hmm, then no."

He's still writing.

Jason stares.

"What the Fuck," he whispers. "Ok, no. No, absolutely not," he walks over, grabs the phone, and the kid squeaks, but Jason is stronger and pulls it away.

"Hey, I almost had it, I just need to-"

"Jesus Christ kid, you're gonna kill yourself," he says as he gathers up the papers. Tim scrambles to pull the back but Jason gets most of them.

"What, no, I just want to finish-"

"You're not doing anything other than getting _sleep_. I swear, how did you not give Alfred a heart attack yet? I thought Bruce was bad but holy shit. No, shut up. Sit down, you're getting food and then getting sleep or I'm going to tie you down to that couch and tranq you, got it?"

Tim is spluttering, but Jason glares him into submission. No wonder he fit in with the bats so fast - he was the worst of all of them.

He looks at the papers and finds details on all the perps from yesterday, and dates and coordinates, and Jesus fuck, Jason didn’t even need to try and kill the kid. He was gonna do it all on his own soon enough.

He slams the papers down on the counter, pulls out all the non-perishables he stored here, and gets to work on a quick fried rice with vegetables.

He plates it, turns around, and almost screams when he finds the replacement still scribbling down notes on the back of one paper. He only just refrains. The kid is gearing up to protest when he slams the food down. Jason glares.

"Eat."

Tim pales, and Jason almost feels bad, but if intimidation is what he needs then intimidation is what he'll use. At least the kid is eating.

He grabs his phone and opens it up and -

_What the fuck._

The replacement speaks. "Oh, yeah. Sorry, I-" Jason glares again, and the kid goes back to eating.

It looks like the entire GCPD’s database made it’s way onto his phone. He isn't even sure how that's possible, and now he needs to figure out how to get the phone back to normal so he can call someone to pick up the kid.

Christ.

Beaten, tired and concussed, and the kid still wasn't able to stop working for three seconds. If this habit was Bruce's fault, then he was going to have Words.

"Ok, I'm done, now can I have-"

"Sleep."

"What? No, you can't-"

"Replacement. Sleep."

There's black bags the size of a black hole under his eyes. He still tries to protest sleeping.

"We can't let those guns get out! Look, I just-"

" _Sleep_ , or I will tranq you."

"Jason, I only-"

Jason stands up, and Tim shuts up.

He goes to sleep.

Jason pulls the blanket on top of him, and looks to the sky for patience. _This Kid_.


End file.
